Statement Regarding Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)

Legal Impact for Chickens is saddened and frustrated by the huge numbers of birds being killed by startlingly inhumane methods in response to the spread of avian influenza in factory farms across the United States and the world right now. LIC President Alene Anello presented comments to the US National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) in fall of 2021 advising more space for birds to reduce the risk of disease. The proposal was ignored. We believe that factory farms need to respond NOW by drastically reducing the size of flocks and increasing space for individual birds. Birds should not be bred and hatched if the companies that control their lives have no plan for how to address disease risk humanely. Avian influenza cannot be considered an “exigent circumstance” justifying extra-barbarous methods of slaughter when it is so prevalent and foreseeable. It is especially foreseeable when companies crowd huge numbers of animals together, indoors.